redamancy

The week Charlie visits her parents, Addison does a lot of thinking. She thinks about what Lisa told her, she thinks about her and Charlie's relationship, she tries not to think about Charlie dying on the operating table.

"Hey, red." Someone whispers in Addison's ear, she turns around and standing in front of her with a smirk on his face is Mark Sloan.

"Mark?" Her eyes are wide. "What are you doing here?"

"Two things, Webber offered me a job to head plastics and to win you back."

"Mark, I'm with someone, happily. Very happily. So whatever plan you have in your head to woo me, stop it."

"Ah but baby, we used to have so much fun."

"Yes, we did. Keywords in that sentence are 'used to', meaning not anymore. Goodbye Mark." She smiles at him and walks away.

"I still haven't met this 'someone that you're with, do they even exist?" He laughs and Addison turns around to face him.

"Yes, they do. They're not here right now, but you can meet them next week."

*

She greets Charlie at the airport. She wheels her case through the arrivals door and Addison's heart beats a million miles a minute.

She was home, she was home and safe and Addison could finally stop waking up in the middle of the night and thinking that she had died because Charlie wasn't there. As soon as Charlie gets home, she hides the ring box in her sock drawer; in hindsight, she really should have hidden it somewhere else. They settle back into a routine, a nice familiar routine and Addison can finally breathe properly.

The intern exams were approaching fast; every spare minute Charlie had was spent on revising.

She sat on the couch, flashcards and medical books surrounding her. She was highlighting every important word but none of it was going in.

"Hey," Addison says as she walks through the door with pizza in her hands. "I know you've been stressed a little with the interns so I bought pizza." She smiles and leans over the couch to kiss Charlie. She drops the pizza box on the table next to Charlie and takes a slice before heading into the bedroom. 6 hours later, Charlie is still awake, it's gone 2 am and the pizza has been long gone. Addison opens the door to the bedroom and squints as her eyes adjust the light. "Please come to bed."

"Addie, I would love to, really I would, but I need to revise." Addison sighs and walks over to her girlfriend. She plucks the revision cards out of her hands and sits on her lap.

"You're going to burn yourself out. Please." She says, taking Charlie's face within her hands. She leans down and kisses her lightly before pulling away. Charlie nods and they both head to bed.

She wasn't cleared for work, not yet. She was still allowed in the hospital but she could only do admin, strictly no patients, but it was only a temporary setback, it meant more time to revise for her interns.

"We should have a study session. Where we just quiz each other, just us, pure revision and lots of coffee." Cristina says at lunch. "Satan Screwer, can we use your apartment? Mine is messy and I am sick of going to Mer's. No offence."

"Sure, we could do it tonight? Addison has a few surgeries so we can just chill." Charlie explains to her friends.

She forgets to tell Addison about the study session.

Addison had lost the mother in her latest surgery, she was hypotensive and just flatlined, Addison couldn't get her back. She just wanted to come home and spend some time with Charlie, that's all she wanted; a quiet night in.

She opens the door and finds the interns all crowded in her living space with music playing from the record player and take out boxes littering the floor.

"How do you treat pancreatic divisum? Izzie?" Cristina yells and points.

"Dorsal duct sphincterotomy," Alex says as he grabs the bag of chips off the table

"Evil Spawn! You idiot! It's not your turn. As punishment, you get no chips." Cristina says snatching the bag away from him.

"Hey!" Alex shouts.

Addison takes a deep breath in, she did not want to lose her shit in front of Charlie's friends. She takes off her heels and sets her bag down.

"Okay, so we have no red vines, but we do have Twizzlers," Charlie says turning from the kitchen cupboards to face her friends. "Oh hey." She smiles and walks over to Addison, who is leaning against the kitchen counter, with her head down. "Everything okay?"

"Can you please just get them out of here?"

"We're studying for the interns."

"Well, study somewhere else."

"Addie, come on. They've only been here like an hour.

"Just get them out of here, Charlie!" She snaps, the interns look over and quickly gather their things. Alex switches the music off and gathers up the snacks, his main priority.

"We'll see you tomorrow." Meredith smiles as she ushers everyone out of the apartment.

Addison moves through the apartment in silence. She ignores Charlie's pleads to tell her what's wrong and the only thing she speaks to her is, "Can you please at least tidy up before you come to bed."

They don't see each other the next day, Addison has early surgeries and appointments to make, while Charlie is stuck in a conference room revising.

"Oh hello."

Charlie looks up. "Hello?"

"Mark, Mark Sloan, head of plastics." He holds out his hand and Charlie tentatively shakes it.

"Charlotte 'Charlie' Beck, intern." She hesitates a smile then turns back to her work.

"You are just very stunning on the eyes, has anyone told you that."

"Did you need something or are you just here to bother me? I have revision to be doing, my interns are in like 3 days, so if you wouldn't mind just...leaving, that would be fab."

"Charlotte Beck. Explain her to me." Mark asks Derek and he watches her study.

"She's Addison's back off, Mark."

"Now I know why she didn't want a piece of the McSteamy pie. I wonder if they would be up for a threesome?" Mark wonders, Derek just whacks him in the stomach.

*

They don't properly speak to each other until the night before the exam, Addison comes home late from surgery and Charlie is sat revising by herself. She sits on the bed, and as always her books surround her but no information is retained in her head. She hears the door go and keys being thrown and shoes clunking, Charlie just ignores and keeps rereading the same paragraph. Addison stands in the doorway, her hands gripping the doorjamb.

"How'd you like to have sex with the Meryl Streep of Maternal-Fetal medicine." She bites her lip and Charlie nearly combusts.

"I honestly would love to right now but the intern exams are tomorrow and I'm panicking so I'm trying to cram as much as I can right now..." She says flicking back through the flashcards.

"Okay, well how about, or every question you get right...I will take off one piece of clothing." She takes the cards from Charlie's hands and slowly paces the bedroom. "What's Kahn's syndrome?

"I know this." Charlies click your fingers trying to remember the words. "Um...hypocortolis...cortolism...No! Primary hypro dostrolonism." Addison smiles.

"Very good." She raises her hands and slowly unbuttons her shirt, letting it drop over her shoulders. Charlie sucks in a breath and bites her lip as she reads the next card. "Next card, what acid-based finding do you classically get with significant vomit?"

"Okay, so there are hypokalemic, hypochloremic, metabolic, and...there's one more," Charlie says squeezing her fist.

"You get it wrong and the shirt goes back on."

"Don't you dare, it's acidosis!" Charlie nods her head, at least she remembers some of it.

Addison stands in front of the bed slowly unzips her skirt, letting it drop. She's stood in lace and Charlie can't take her eyes off her. She stares at her, mouth open for a while before shutting her eyes and throwing her head back.

"I'm supposed to be revising and you're not helping me. You're distracting me."

"I mean we could stop, and I could go to sleep. I don't have to quiz you on your exam."

"No, no, please. Do not go to sleep. We are having sex, just let's do a few more questions."

"Okay, then what is a Gerota's fascia?

"It's the fascia surrounding the kidney."

She goes for her bra next. She reaches slowly round to unhook it, pulling it off and dropping it on the floor. Charlie stares slackly jawed at the gorgeous woman in front of her.

"Fuck it." She suddenly says as she pulls Addison down towards her and shoves the books off the bed.

*

"That was...wow...you're getting good at that." She says panting for air. Charlie pulls her closer and starts trailing kisses down her neck. She stays silent for a few minutes before she says something which completely throws you off.

"Charlie?" She asks her, Charlie pulls away and looks at Addison

"Yeah."

"Why did you do it? That day, in the café. Why did you intervene?"

"He was holding a gun to her head. And I couldn't stop thinking about how much she looked like you, I couldn't stop picturing you pregnant. I guess I snapped and just went for him."

"You thought it was a good idea to tackle a man with a gun?"

"I don't know; it was a split-second decision that I made. I wasn't thinking."

"Exactly, Charlie. You weren't thinking. You died. You died on that table and you're acting as if that was nothing."

"Addison, it's okay."

"No it's not," Addison sits up, pulling the sheet with her. "You have so much disregard for your own life that you were going to throw it away on some random woman. You died and you don't care. You don't care, that in the days after your surgery I didn't sleep. I couldn't sleep because if something were to have happened to you while I was, I would never have forgiven myself. You were willing to throw away everything, you were willing to throw us away and I can't handle that." She gets out of bed and pulls on sweatpants and an old college hoodie of Charlie's

"Addie-" Charlie sits up on her uninjured arm.

"I need you to care. I need you to cry or break down or something over the fact that you died, Charlie!" Addison paces in front of the bed, her arms flailing about, expressing her point.

"And if I don't? If I just carry on the way that I'm going, what happens then?" 

"Then I don't know if I can do this anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"I just...I need you to realise how precious your life is, and right now you don't even care Charlie."

Charlie sits up on the bed, a sheet around her hips staring at Addison.

"Are we breaking up right now?"

She closes her eyes and takes a seat on the end of the bed.

"I don't know, maybe," Charlie's entire world shatters. "I...I just need you to take some time and prioritise or something, I just need you to put your life first. No one else's, not mine, not Alex's, not some strangers but yours. Please. For me. Especially if we're thinking about kids, Charlie."

Charlie's eyes start to fill with tears.

"Please don't go."

"Charlie. You'll be okay." Addison says as she smiles sadly and heads to walk out of the apartment. Once she heard the door shut, Charlie broke down in tears